Take an exciting journey with your Filipino learning community! The Philippines, an archipelago situated in Southeast Asia, is a home to more than seven thousand beautiful islands and hundred languages. To connect its people, Filipino as a national language is continuously being enriched and promoted as mandated by the 1987 Philippine Constitution on the basis of Tagalog and other existing Philippine languages. With an increasing number of global citizens with Filipino heritage or connection, the teaching of Filipino has expanded its borders to various educational institutions including Harvard University offering it for the first time!
Enhancing the students’ communicative competency in Filipino (Tagalog), the classes introduce a range of concepts related to Philippine culture, tradition, history, and other contemporary topics bringing context into the language classes while promoting a sense of family and community that makes learning a foreign language more interactive and engaging!
FT 101: Elementary Filipino (Tagalog) I
Instructor: Lady Aileen Orsal; Fall 2024: M-Th 3:00-4:15pm
This course is designed to equip learners of the basic skills in listening, reading, writing and speaking in Filipino, the national language of the Philippines. Along with vocabulary and basic grammar to facilitate language learning, this beginner’s course will also include introduction to some concepts relevant to Philippine culture adding context to the linguistic inputs in the discussion. Utilizing a combination of communicative, functional-situational, and task-based instruction, this course will capacitate learners to express themselves in the target language and understand basic texts in familiar settings of family, school, and community. It will also help students participate in conversations relevant to daily lives or simple transactions. Upon learning the basics of the language, the students are also expected to create preliminary scholarly works relevant to their areas of study through reading authentic texts from the country. Depending on the class situation, parts of this syllabus may be adjusted depending on the profile of the class and its students. Must be taken for a letter grade. No auditors.
FT 102: Intermediate Filipino (Tagalog) II
Instructor: Lady Aileen Orsal; Fall 2024: M-Th 10:30 – 11:45am
This course is designed to further develop the understanding of the students on the more complex sentence structures along with a range of texts relevant to Philippine culture, traditions, history, and other contemporary topics in the Filipino society. Building up on some basic skills acquired in the previous Filipino language courses or through exposure and experience as in the case of heritage learners, this course equips students in addressing daily needs with the use of the target language through a mix of communicative, content-based, task-based, and other relevant approaches. It also capacitates the students in participating in social transactions and in a variety of communicative situations ensuring that the language skills learned will be used for practical purposes. Upon learning more about the language, the students are also expected to create preliminary scholarly works relevant to their areas of study through reading authentic texts from the country. Parts of this syllabus may be adjusted depending on the profile of the class and its students. If an interested student has not yet taken a year of introductory Filipino class, a placement test administered by the preceptor is needed before enrolling to ensure that the student meets the qualifications for the intermediate class. Must be taken for a letter grade. No auditors.
FT 103: Advanced Filipino (Tagalog)
Instructor: Lady Aileen Orsal; Fall 2024: M- 3:30-5:30pm / Th – 4:30– 6:30pm
This course is designed to enhance the communicative competence of the students in the advanced level. Aside from being equipped to understand longer texts in the target language, this course will also help students to sustain conversations in Filipino and demonstrate ability to write reports and reviews on topics in various formats. They will be guided in making formal and informal presentations using appropriate language that is considered culturally acceptable in the target culture. At the end of the course, the students are expected to be able to not only perform communicative tasks with fluency but also to express opinions on a variety of social issues relevant to Philippine context and the global Filipino perspective. If a student has not yet taken Filipino language classes in the previous semesters but is exposed and has knowledge of the language as in the case of heritage learners, a placement test administered by the instructor is needed before enrolling to ensure that the student meets the qualifications for the advanced class. No auditors will be permitted. Enrolled students must take the course for a letter grade.